It's now in its 20th year, but Ace Combat 7 shows that there's plenty of life yet in the series. Neither pure arcade, nor hardcore simulation, it straddles the line it needs to offer both a sense of flight and fast, furious dogfight action, even as it tells a cinematic and genuinely enjoyable story.

Travis Strikes Back: No More Heroes isn’t the Lollipop Chainsaw remaster that I’ve been begging Goichi Suda to produce each year over the last four TGS' when I've caught up with him, but it’s a stylish, energetic, amusing and surrealistic return to Suda’s most popular character and “world.” Yes, it might have been a vanity project for a guy that wanted to indulge his love for retro and indie games, but I’ve had a cracking time watching Suda show off just how much of a nerd he really is.

Bury Me, My Love is a remarkable exercise in building empathy. It’s a simple game, but so much more razor focused and successful at creating authenticity than most games that have budgets of a hundred million. Most importantly, however, is that no game is telling a story of greater importance to the world at the moment than Bury Me, My Love. The games industry and those who play games keep arguing that there's the potential for video games to have the emotional power and potential to be the next great art form. Here’s your proof.

While New Super Mario Bros. U Deluxe is a repackage of (mostly) existing stuff, with a couple of minor additions designed largely around making the gameplay more accessible for newcomers, and is clearly a filler release on Nintendo's part to capitalise on the post-Christmas lull and appetite for new stuff to play, it's hard to deny its value.

Despite the original PlayStation 3 version of Borderlands 2 ending up with an aggregate score of 91 per cent on Metacritic. It’s hard to recommend this PlayStation VR release. It does contain all of what made Borderlands 2 a delightful game, but it's the inferior version, trading comfortable controls, co-op and DLC for the marginal thrill of having a 360-degree perspective on the world.

At its core, PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds relies on the unpredictability of players to help provide the variety, and that is not a bad way to go. Still, I would really like to see the technical issues smoothed out and more variety in the form of maps added to help make PUBG's a better overall experience.

Between the gorgeous artwork, haunting score, and increasingly abstract world, it manages to take you on a journey through depression that words alone never could. If it's something you've experienced yourself, you can probably guess where it's going and what those shadows might be, but Gris is no less powerful for it. In fact, it's quite the opposite: at least for me, the familiarity of Gris' journey is what made it so impactful, like it was reaching out a hand and saying "I understand."

I'll be really disappointed if Nintendo really is shifting emphasis to turn Smash Bros. into a more "serious" fighting game. It says a lot about Super Smash Bros. Ultimate that the biggest criticism that I have with it is that the intent of this game seems at odds compared with the intent of Smash Bros. entries in the past. This won't work nearly as well as a party game as some in the Smash Bros. series have in the past, but nonetheless this is a genuinely impressive fighting game with a nearly overwhelming amount of content that's going to make the more serious Smash Bros. fans very, very happy.

Horizon Chase Turbo does a good job of creating a sense of speed, and emulating the look and feel of Out Run. Where it falls down is in replacing the timer mechanics of Out Run, which made for a frustrating but ultimately exciting and tense arcade game, with a more typical racing track structure. It plays fine, but with none of the intensity, nor sense of reward, of the game it pulls almost all of its inspiration from.

The best parts of Cattails are when you’re just getting to take in the scenery, hunting some field mice, and then chatting with other cats. There’s so much charm in the sprite work and dialogue, so it’s all the more disappointing when you’re cast into dull combat exchanges simply because a RPG needs fighting.

Ultimately the only complaints that I can levy against SEGA Mega Drive Classics Collection are that there is not quite enough icing on what is an admittedly very generous cake. With this compilation you’ll be getting 50 games at an absolute steal – and while some of them are historical curios that won’t be worth your time, most are fantastic.

what Darksiders III gets right - the combat system and that beautiful, intricate labyrinth design - it gets so right that it can hold its head high against the many peers that it has at this at this time of year.

Compared with Final Fantasy XV, released in the same year as World of Final Fantasy, I find this game that much more enjoyable and replayable, because it is a gorgeous throwback to the history of the franchise, and because it doesn't take itself seriously.

There's something compelling about building up a farming empire. If nothing else, the developers are doing genuinely good work in highlighting a job that we should all be much more aware of. We don't survive without our farmers, after all.

LEGO DC Super Villains is another example of how TT Games haven’t just sat back on its LEGO titles to simply release “just another game” with a reskin. It doesn't always work, but the developer has tried to do something new while also keeping elements of previous titles that worked. Add in the iconic slapstick humour and you're in for a reliably good time.

I already know that this will be my most-played game on the Switch over the longer term. Once you start playing Civilization, it has the most incredible ability to make you lose all sense of time, and desire to play anything else.

Although Spyro the Dragon and its subsequent two sequels haven’t aged as well as one would hope, Toys for Bob has done a good effort to put out a remaster that does the nostalgia justice. Control and design issues were part and parcel to 3D platformers from the era, but while can't be celebrated except when viewed through an incredibly thick pair of rose-tinted glasses, the overall series remains charming, delightful, and well worth checking out for interest's sake, if nothing else.